The Flip-Flop Canon Swap
by StormwalkerofLorien
Summary: Two teenage girls, each with a love story to experience and a story to change forever, write themselves into Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings. But something is terribly wrong with the plotline. Now they must save the canons, relive the adventures, and kiss their true loves before canon is changed forever. Rated PG for kissing, mild violence, and language. LupinxOC, FrodoxOC
1. My Super-Genius Plan

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. Otherwise, this wouldn't be a fanfiction, now would it?**

**Author's note: The updates might be a little inconsistent, but I'll try to make them once a week.**

_Cai:_

I never expected to be making deals with Malorie Stanton at three o'clock in the morning on a harsh December night, cold and snowy, yet still a good two weeks from Christmas. In fact, I didn't expect I would ever say anything to Malorie Stanton again, after the dramatic screaming match that officially ended our friendship in eighth grade. But there I was, middle of the night, dialing up Malorie's number that I had memorized during middle school, to explain a plan so illogical that it made perfect sense in my mind.

It's not that Malorie had ever been obsessed with Harry Potter. Sure, she liked it, but she wasn't smitten with it like I was, or the way she'd been with Middle Earth. For me, there had always been my younger self's embarassing crush on Remus Lupin (movie version, thank you very much), but my present self tried not to think about that. Whatever. Didn't mean I wasn't pissed when he died.

In fact, the day Lupin died was the day Malorie became my best friend. Fourth grade, three days after the Deathly Hallows had come out in Barnes and Noble. Already I was reading it, and already I had been crying. Now, I am certainly not the type to cry when a character dies, but dear old Hedwig's untimely death had me sobbing. Animals were so much more appealing then people. Honestly, I didn't think it could get worse, and sure, I knew that Fred Weasley was going to die. Plenty of people had already been wandering the school tearfully when they read that part, and I wasn't exactly blind, thank you very much.

But Remus Lupin? No, I did not think he would die. I figured he'd be the only Marauder left alive in the end of the story. I thought maybe the author liked him as much as I once had. So come on, was it any wonder that Malorie Stanton found the new girl in school sobbing by herself under the staircase because she wouldn't let another person see her cry? Was it so surprising that I was, for the first time in years, crying over the death of the character who made me think that just because I was different or odd didn't mean I wasn't worthy of friendship?

So now that I've just confessed my deepest and most humiliating emotional breakdown, I'll get to the gist of my little scheme. It first popped into my head the summer after Malorie and I stopped speaking. I'd been reading fanfiction to take my mind off the fact that I didn't have any friends in the real world (obviously the solution was to wallow in self-pity and misery over my computer screen), and the thought occurred to me, All these Mary-Sues who get pitched into fiction worlds and fall in love… I wonder if that could happen to me?

It was a foolish idea, but I was desperate at the time. Saving Hogwarts from the Dark Lord seemed so much more appealing than being shipped off to some neighborhood high school for another nightmare year.

That was when I decided to write myself in. It was going to take a few months of storing up my fanfiction knowledge and sifting through all the writer's workshop sites on Google, but it would be worth it. It would so be worth it to rub into Malorie Stanton's ugly face that I dated a fourteen-year-old version of Remus Lupin (yeah, I know, real mature of me, but Malorie Stanton's jealousy was really what went through my head at the time), while she was still pining for Frodo's 'crystal blue eyes.' Pathetic.

So after a year or so of detailed planning (including a whole itinerary and a Barnes and Noble replica of the Marauders' Map), the plan went something like this:

Once upon a time, in a kingdom not so far away, the author of this fanfiction got uncharacteristically bored and decided to write herself into the Marauders' Era at Hogwarts. She dropped headfirst through a super-cliche, unexplained magical portal that just happened to appear in her closet because the author was far too lazy to come up with details about the science and/or magic working behind it. She found herself covered with grass and sticks and her hair conveniently messy, making her look a thousand times more attractive than her terribly ugly self was in reality.

No. I did not think I was terribly ugly. But for the sake of a modest character, I had to insert some kind of insecurity. Plus, what good is a crappy teen romance fiction if it doesn't have something useless for the characters to angst over. Angsty, Angstful Angst. Much as I hated to admit it, teen angst was one of the top characteristics of the classic 'pitched like a sack of potatoes into another world' story.

I had only discovered one problem with my fanfiction (actually there were many, most of them involving my inability to write angstfulness without making it sound like character bashing), and that was the question, 'what if I can't get back? What if there's an actual problem that I need to solve. What if *gasp* this awful teen romance needs to have a plotline?'

I needed a plan B. And this, unfortunately for my immature daydreams about rubbing things into the hideous faces of certain absent parties, involved Malorie. Her aforementioned obsession with little Frodo Baggins was going to be my back-up. If the story needed a plotline, I could contact her, and she would run me through some of Tolkien's best methods of tying up loose ends (most of which, or so she told me, revolved around giant magical eagles).

I didn't know what inspired me to call up Malorie. Maybe it was the insane hope that the resurrection of Lupin would rekindle our friendship. After all, his death was what brought us together. Honestly, I would have tried to round up another Potterhead, but at three AM the day before my genius plan was to be activated, I only had two options to solve my last minute drawback: Call up Malorie and beg for her assistance, or dial random numbers with my area code until I found someone who liked Harry Potter enough to refrain from sending me to an asylum.

Lose-lose situation. So I called Malorie.

_Malorie:_

"What?!" The voice shrieked so loud I didn't know what to do at first. I looked around frantically, my eyes wild and distraught, searching for the ghastly scream's perpetrator. Then I realized that it was me. Oops.

"You want me to what?" I asked my former best friend one more time, just to make sure I'd heard her correctly.

"I want us to write our way into Tolkien and Harry Potter. You can settle your little Frodo Baggins love story, and I can bring Lupin back to life once and for all."

"But why are you asking me?"

Cai's voice sighed dramatically on the other end. "Because you're the only person crazy enough to believe me, whether you hate me or not. Just meet me at lunch tomorrow, and don't ask stupid questions."

And, on that note, she hung up.


	2. Rowling vs Tolkien

**Disclaimer: Still don't own it. But I'd love to, so if you have any ideas on how to destroy all records of Tolkien and Rowling's existence, please contact me.**

_Bag End:_

Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, along with a much larger assortment of characters from both The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings than Bag End's dining room could handle, had all gathered around the table to read a novel that Bilbo had found in his library while sorting through all the dusty maps and scrolls. He'd called them all over at once, apparently having discovered a set of seven books on his shelf that replaced the volumes he and Frodo had spent so much of their lives recording.

They'd breezed through the series, their eyes reluctantly glued to the pages, until one Mister Harry Potter was seventeen years old, and Voldemort's curse had backfired, because the author was apparently insistent upon having Harry remain too innocent and pure to actually use the killing curse.

"Oh, please," scoffed Frodo, as they slammed shut the last book. "My trip to Mount Doom left me scarred for life, and they want us to believe he's still an innocent child? He tried to crucio Bellatrix Lestrange, for Valar's sake!"

"Yes," Queen Arwen interrupted in her sickeningly musical voice, "But Bellatrix had murdered his godfather."

"So?" Frodo scrunched up his twitchy hobbit nose. "Gollum tried to eat my uncle. He tried to kill Sam and I, and he tackled me on the edge of Mount Doom's boiling cavern just for a stupid 'precious' ring! Would I have crucio'd him? No. Besides, Harry got his happy ending. I'd be seeing a psychologist for life if I were him!"

Gandalf scowled, his bushy gray eyebrows scrunched together dubiously. "Are you sure you should be scorning a young boy's trouble life?"

But the King Elessar nodded in agreement with Frodo. "And whoever wrote this obviously ripped her characters off of us. Orphaned boy raised by an uncle? Living trees? Fear-instilling beings that suck all the happiness out of you when they're near? Even the evil overlord coming back from the dead, because his life force is tied to an object of dark, powerful magic had been stolen straight from our lives."

"Not to mention that Dumbledore is practically a replica of Gandalf."

"Except he actually dies."

"Yet he returns in Harry's dreams so he can assist the boy in his quest."

"So he is a rip-off of Mithrandir!"

Soon the whole room of Dwarves, Elves, Hobbits, and Men were squabbling like children, until Gandalf, the only unbiased party, it seemed, in all of Middle Earth, decided to step in and bring them to an agreement.

"Silence, fools!" He rose like the shadow of an ancient tree above the arguing folk. "This matter is not for discussion! You must not scorn the hardships of others, or you will suffer it for them!"

"What's that supposed to mean?" piped up Meriadoc Brandybuck, with a skeptical glint in his eyes. "And how did these blasted books show up here in the first place? What happened to the tales of Frodo and Bilbo?"

_Earlier, in Hogwarts:_

"You sure about this, Hermione?"

"Positive. These are The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien, and The Hobbit, also known as There and Back Again. Don't question me, Ronald, when I talk about books."

Ron raised his hands in surrender. "I'm not. Just making sure."

"Listen," said Harry. "It doesn't matter what these are called. We've read them, and they're obviously meant to contend with the books we wrote about our own adventures."

Hermione's eyes narrowed. "Which Ron here accidentally vanished, replacing it with these awful things."

"I never thought I would hear Hermione Granger call a book awful."

"Careful, Weasely, do you want me to marry you or not?"

Once again, Ron was forced to surrender. "Not going to argue," he muttered to himself. "It's not good for my health."

Harry patted him on the back. "Got that right, mate. Never argue with Hermione when she's in one of her moods."

"I am not in one of my 'moods!' I'm just slightly irritated that this Frodo Baggins thinks he went through more emotional trauma than we did. I mean, he only had to deal with one object of extreme evil power, which was around his neck the whole time! We had to find seven, for Merlin's sake. Seven! And Harry had to temporarily die in order to kill Voldemort. And look at Frodo in the end, talking about how he's permanently scarred. Does no one think that all the dead loved ones meant nothing to our mental sanity? So selfish!"

Dumbledore's voice sounded behind them. "I would not say that, Miss Granger." They spun around at the dead professor's words, only to find his portrait, blue eyes twinkling, his lips pursed sternly at their tone of contempt.

"Master Baggins suffered greatly for his courage. You would not do well to mock him."

"And how would you know that? Our story is basically seven times the plot and pain as his, and he claims to have dealt with emotional stress?" Harry was fuming, as were his two best friends.

A white glow began to emanate from Dumbledore's eyes. "Perhaps," he said, his voice oddly cold, "you would like a glimpse of his pain."

The light grew, just as, simultaneously in Middle Earth, Gandalf's anger got the best of him, and his staff filled the room with an odd blue glow.

From there, no one knew just where they would go.


	3. What Happens in English

Why am I here? I'm sixteen years old with my name permanently etched into the honor roll, and here I am in the library listening to my ex-best-friend go on about her 'technical' plan to get us dumped into fantasy worlds. I wish I could say that ship sailed long ago when Frodo set off for Valinor and I was still stuck in my eighth grade math class daydreaming about his handsome blue eyes, but unfortunately, I was still sort of wrapped up in those eyes.

Caia, however, was still going on about that third grade crush of hers, and being able to meet his teenage self. Blah, blah, blah. Potterhead.

"So you would offer me some Tolkien-style escape plans in case I find myself in particularly sticky situation, okay? We'll both have our cell phones, and sure as I am that Hogwarts has coverage for Verizon, I don't know how well Elf-magic will work to get you a signal. But try, okay? If anything goes wrong, we'll just have to communicate through spells and letters."

And that was when the questions began to spill over. Every little inquiery that had built up in my head since our three A.M. conversation the night before spewed out of my mouth, as if I had puked up a psychology book or something.

"How are we going to get there? How much research have you done on this? What if something goes wrong, and we're stuck there for the rest of our lives? What if Frodo already has a girlfriend? What if we're total Mary-Sues? When would we be going?" And et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

I didn't think Cai would have planned in that much detail, but apparently I didn't know her as well as I thought. Last time we'd spoken, she was a disorganized daydreamer who didn't do her math homework, because she was indignant that we didn't get to take a transfiguration class when we got to high school. But she'd changed quite a bit, or perhaps just been so wrapped up in this idea that she had meticulously planned the whole thing. Or maybe it was just the frightening prospect of being killed by Voldemor that forced her to organize her schemes a little bit.

"Well we'll get there by writing ourselves in through fanfiction. Not the most common way, but we don't want to end up as Mary-Sues, to answer that question. If we get there like Sues, we'll turn out like Sues. Blech, that would be miserable. I've done a lot of research on this matter, though most of it is through fanfiction as well, so I'm not quite sure about the math and science of the whole thing, if there even is any. If something goes wrong, I'm hoping we'll be able to figure it out, because it's quite likely that something will go wrong eventually. But if we can't figure it out, then we're screwed. If Frodo has a girlfriend, there's nothing I can do about it, but I doubt Tolkien ever wrote that, so you'll probably get lucky. As for when we would be going? Right now."

My jaw dropped. Much as I wanted to say something snippy and stalk away like we'd been doing to each other for two years, she had me so completely intrigued that I could only stare in awe at Cai's smug face.

"Now?" I squeaked through my frozen up tongue. Cai nodded.

"I've got the writing all set up. We just have to add a couple of sentences and wait. Hopefully it will happen during lunch, but you never know. Could take a few hours."

I bobbed my head up and down dumbly. Caia smirked, and again I was tempted to offer her a sarcastic retort, but I couldn't if I wanted a shot at Frodo Baggins. "Where's the writing?" I asked, trying to take my mind off the hatret that consumed it. Okay, so maybe hatred's too strong a word. More like 'bitter dislike.'

Cai directed me to a shiny Macbook Pro that instantly caused envy to well up inside me. Not that it was going to show. It was going to stay all bottled up, along with that Christmas wish-list from 2010 with an ipod on it that I never got. I was too old to believe in Santa anyways. She opened up the laptop, and flaunted the document it had contained.

Me? I'd never been a particularly good writer. I was always the Math whiz who memorized the periodic table of elements by the time she was ten. Me, write fanfiction? Go figure. I preferred happy plotless daydreams, thanks.

Cai, on the other hand, was a magnificent writer. How many contests had she won by now? I didn't want to know, lest it cause that irritating little bubble of envy to well up again. No hard feelings were going to get between me and my shot at Frodo.

"So this," explained Cai with a devious grin framed in her short brown hair, "Is the plan." My eyes reluctantly began to scan over a couple paragraphs about being pitched with no explanation what-so-ever into the Hogwarts grounds and conveniently running to a sixteen-year-old version of Remus Lupin, who just happened to be wandering throught the forest pondering his mortality for no apparent reason. It was so cliche that I wanted to barf. And yet it was somehow original, as well. Mostly the sarcasm, but the self-admitted likeness to a Mary Sue added a good touch. A thought formed in my head, something along the lines of, this crazy scheme might actually work. Not that I was about to Cai. But then she opened my document.

She had accentuated my fairy-like blonde hair and blue eyes, so that I appeared somewhat Elvish, yet at the same time, I was as short as a hobbit. And I had normal ears, thank God. And it wasn't love at first sight, either. It was playful banter and witty retorts up until paragraph two, where Frodo first began to have feelings for me. It made my heart flutter in a mushy, crushy way that was quite uncharacteristic of me.

"Like it?" she asked, with that evil grin still plastered across her face.

I didn't say anything.

"I knew you would." And she turned back to the computer. "I think if I add these last couple bits of punctuation and correct my grammar, we should be… good."

I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping that Frodo's soft voice would whisper something clever and endearing into my ears before I opened them, hoping that a wind would pick me up and sweep me off to Middle Earth where all of my sappy daydreams would come true. But no such luck.

"Be patient, Mal," came Cai's hot voice through the darkness.

"Don't call me that," I muttered, opening my eyes. The library never seemed so unappealing.

"Mal is the Latin root meaning 'bad' or 'evil.' I thought it was appropriately used here."

I stuck my tongue out. Leave it to the writer nerd.

The bell sounded, signifying my long and bitter trudge to English class. Joy of joys. Don't we all just love English class? Except for Cai of course, who genuinely enjoyed that class. How? I don't know. For me it was a hour of naptime to rest up before Math.

And so I found myself listening to Mrs. Anderson drone on and on about subjects and predicates and all that crap we thought we had learned in third grade that they just insisted upon teaching us over and over again, as if they hadn't already drilled it into our heads the past five years. All I could think about were Frodo's glorious eyes and that curly mop of dark brown hair, and that friendly smile and… crap. Did I just get called on?

"Um…" Awkward silence. Mrs. Anderson's hawk-like eyes were fixated upon my own completely blank stare, my mouth hanging open slightly waiting for drool to tumble over my lips. The ultimate posture of boredom and stupor. Not that this wasn't a normal thing during English. I'm sure the entire class thought of me as the girl who didn't know zip about grammar, but frankly, I knew enough. I'd stopped listening after fifth grade.

"Err… could you repeat the question?"

She opened her mouth to repeat the grammar question she had undoubtedly asked me to prove I wasn't paying attention, but no words came out. She just froze in place, her tight black hair beginning to glow. Wait. Why was she glowing? Why was I glowing? Why was everything glowing?

A wind began to pick up. That wonderful magic wind I had been waiting for my whole life, swirling around me, caressing my cheeks, forcing a grin onto my face. Oh, yes! This was it! I was finally going to get my Frodo! Mine, mine, mine! My thoughts were a jumble as I spun and flew in this sparkly magical wind for what felt like hours, until my head thumped against the earth, and a familiar voice sent my heart flying out of my chest.

"You all right?"

I opened my eyes to see none other than Frodo Baggins, with his curly dark hair and hobbit feet that I didn't give a crap about being covered in fur, and his round glasses and that ring-shaped scar on his forehead, and - wait.

Ring-shaped scar? He was definitely Frodo, yes, but the scar was unmistakable. And where was I, anyways?

For the first time, I sat up and looked around. Temperamental tree, smoking stone hut, field of oversized pumpkins, castle in the distance. This was not Middle Earth. This was - Hogwarts?

Shit.


	4. A Rather Strange-Looking Elf

**I don't, unfortunately, have the rights to ****_Harry Potter_**** and ****_Lord of the Rings_****. If I did, I'd be a billionaire. A multi-billionaire. But obviously since I'm not a multi-billionaire, I don't own the characters or the worlds they're in. Except for Cai and Malorie and all their weirdness. Them I do own.**

**Author's Note: This is going to be about as AU as it gets. Unless, of course, someone decides that Elrond should marry Hermione. That would probably be more AU. But considering I'm throwing these characters into each others' worlds, it's going to turn out pretty darn AU. Also, I'm alright with constructive criticism; in fact, I want constructive criticism, but ranting, all-caps flames will incur the wrath of Dumbledalf. So no angry screaming crappily puncuated flames, please.**

How had I wound up here again? Being dropped into the Council of Elrond with a bunch of Marauder's Era lunatics. Why was Dumbledore Gandalf and James Potter Frodo Baggins? And why did Lupin have to take the place of Meriadoc Brandybuck? He gets captured by orcs, darn it! I sighed from where I sat, still dazed, on the stone floor of Elrond's balcony, the One Horcrux (which happened to take the shape of Voldemort's childhood ring), sitting on the pedestal in front of me.

"Who are you?" Demanded Gandalf- Dumbledore- no Gandalf. "And where do you come from?"

"Reality," I coughed, rubbing my head. "And why are you guys all here? I'm supposed to be in Hogwarts."

"Hogwarts shmogwarts," growled Mad-Eye Moody, wearing Elven robes with pointy ears. I shivered at the demented shape he had taken. "Be on your guard. We need to take this horcrux to Mordor if we are to defeat the Dark Lord."

"Which Dark Lord?" I asked loudly, and rather dumbly, with that same incredulous expression still glued onto my face.

"Why, Voldemort, of course," said Dumbledore with an indignant tone. "What other Dark Lord is there?"

"Um.. Sauron," I murmured, hoping he wouldn't hear me.

"Sauron?" Dumbledore laughed himself hoarse. "He's stuck with all of his orcs back in Nocturne Alley!"

"Um…" I said again, hoping I didn't appear too stupid. "This is the Lord of the Rings plotline. Why are you guys all here?"

Gandalf - I mean Dumbledore - laughed at me again. Oh, what the heck. Dumbledalf. "We've been flopped," he said joyously. When Bilbo and Frodo got ahold of Harry's seven books, and the Golden Trio got ahold of Frodo's trilogy, they scorned each others' plotlines so much that Gandalf switched them into our story and I switched all of us into their story."

"Oh." My voice came out as a soft squeak. As thoroughly as he had explained it too me (which wasn't that thoroughly), I still had no idea what he was talking about. "So why are the Marauders here?" I asked sheepishly, glancing at the four young boys, who now possessed hobbit-shaped ears. What was it with ears around here? At least their feet weren't hairy and gross.

Dumbledalf laughed at me again. Darn it, why was he laughing at me? I just fell into Tolkien's plotline filled with characters from Rowling's books! That deserved explanation!

"Did you think that I would be able to stuff all of Rowling's characters into one story universe? Harry, Ron, and Hermione and living this, as well, but since you obviously wanted to fall into the Marauders' Era, this was where you fell. I assure you your friend had found Mister Baggins by now, since she is so clearly smitten with him."

I narrowed my eyes. How the heck Dumbledalf knew about Malorie was a mystery to me. But there were a few things I wanted to sort out.

"First of all, she's not my friend. She's my ex-friend. We hate each other, no matter how friendly we appear to be. Second of all, how do you know that she's hopelessly in love with Frodo? I thought only I knew that, considering I actually had the decency to keep it secret so that Malorie didn't spill about my third grade crush on Remus's future self."

I clapped my hand over my mouth. Nice job revealing your intentions, self. You just told Remus Lupin you had a crush on his thirty-year-old being when you were in third grade. And now you're turning bright red while staring awkwardly at his sixteen-year-old being. Real nice job. Now he's turning red too. Oh gosh, I can see the resemblence between his older person's face and his younger person's. Except his younger person is better looking. No duh, self. Go figure.

Finally James Potter, in place of Frodo, broke the long awkward silence. "Ahem," he coughed, eyeing me skeptically. "I believe we have more pressing matters to deal with." His eyes turned to the One Horcrux. Or the One Ring. Or whatever it was. Oh, goodness. This was going to take some getting used to.

"Right," said Moody, forcing his voice to sound purposeful. "The Horcrux must be taken deep into Mordor and cast into the fiery chasm from whence it came."

"But-" I interrupted for the second time, "Wouldn't the mountain be something different if the canons got flopped?"

Creepy Elf-Moody dipped his head, though I could practically feel his annoyance on my back. "The mountain is called Mount Basilisk Venom, but we decided just to keep calling it Mount Doom. It's shorter, and it has a nice ring to it."

Well. Okay, then.

"One of you must take the ring to Mordor," growled Moody in his best foreboding Elf voice.

There was another awkward silence. Dumbledalf elbowed James in the ribs.

"Ow!" he cried indignantly, shooting a glare at the old wizard. "What was that for?"

"You're Frodo. You're supposed to volunteer."

James crinkled his eyebrows. "Are you kidding me? I thought I was supposed to be Aragorn, that dude with the romantic sub-plot. And come on, Lily Evans would make one heck of an Elf maiden." A salf-satisfied smirk spread onto his face.

But Dumbledalf only shrugged. "I'm sorry it had to come to this, but you Marauders were as close as the four hobbits, despite the fact that you get split up in the end."

"We what?" Came four voices at once. Dumbledalf raised his hands in surrender.

"Calm, down, all of you. It's just how the plotline goes. And don't worry, you'll all survive if this follows canon."

Which it did, except for the fact that I had obviously appeared in the middle of the Council of Elrond/Mad-Eye Moody and was not about to be left behind. Not when my first real love story was in question.

"It's AU," I burst out. "We don't know whether they'll live or die. Otherwise I wouldn't be here."

I could feel my cheeks heat up, turning deep red like they always did when people turned to look at me. "Um…" I squeaked, "Who are all your respective characters again?"

It was the only thing I could think to ask. Was James Aragorn or Frodo? He was good-looking enough to be Aragorn, but it only made sense that, being the leader of the four Marauders, he would be Frodo Baggins. And was Moody really being made into an Elf? Well that was just great. And if someone else was Aragorn - who was Arwen - and was there even going to be a romantic subplot if this was AU? And, even better, was it going to be hers? Heh, heh, heh. Her sappy side sniggered at the thought. But since Dumbledalf was clearly the wisest person around, he should have the answers.

And he did. Because he was Dumbledalf. "This," he began, gesturing at James, "Is Frodo." James opened his mouth to protest, then thought better of it and resorted to sagging sulkily in his stone chair with a deliberate pout on his face.

Dumbledalf continued down the line. "Sirius Black is Samwise Gamgee, Frodo's closes friend, thought God knows how that'll turn out in the end. Peter Pettigrew is Peregrine Took. Not the best match, but it was all I could think of on the spot, and Remus Lupin is Meriadoc Brandybuck."

Ah. So I was right about that. So perhaps there'll be a Merry/OC plotline somewhere around the Fangorn area. Wasn't that about where Merry and Pippin run into ol' what's his name talking tree dude?

"Frank Longbottom is Aragorn. Another strange match-up, but it'll do." I blinked a couple of times. So that must mean that that Alice was Arwen. I could see that.

"Severus Snape is Boromir-" Okay, so I choked on my own spit on that one. "And Lily Potter is Legolas. Had to do some gender-swapping, and it'll surely be AU, but she sorta needed to be a main character."

"And who's Gimli?"

"Errr…" Dumbledalf paused in slight confusion, before lowering his head in embarassment. Who had he chosen for Gimli?

"Mundungus Fletcher."

I couldn't help but burst out laughing. He was so fitted to the Dwarf, and yet they were so different. I amost regretted my decision to follow Merry and Pippin (Remus and Peter), just because I wanted so badly to see Mundungus with a coarse red beard and Dwarvish battle garb.

"Now that brings us to the question of who will take the ring to Mordor."

I knew that in the original films and probably the books, the Council divided amongst itself and began to squabble over who would go. Except here they squabbled over who wouldn't go, each offering excuses and squeamish insults to save their own skins.

From the edge of my hearing, I heard James mutter, "Ah, heck with it. This is ridiculous. All right," he conceded, "I'll go, since you can't really agree on anybody else."

Well Dumbledalf seemed relieved. I'll bet the conflict had really set his hearing aid on edge.

"Great," said Frank Longbottom, a scrawny boy whose presence I had overlooked. "Glad that's settled then.

Dumbledalf shot him a glare. "You're supposed to offer your protection."

Fank bit his lip. "I don't know how to use a sword."

"Oh, you will learn."

He seemed to consider this for a moment, before lowering his chin and scuffing the ground with a mumble of, "Okay, then. I'll go."

"Lily?"

"Hmmm?" she looked up with a confused glance, her soft green eyes bagged from napping. Well, someone wasn't paying attention. "Oh, yes, right. Um… what's the line? It's in the book, I swear, and if I could only remember… oh yeah. Err… you have my bow. Except, I don't really know how to use it."

"Once again, we'll teach you. Otherwise you'll all be dead before you reach Osgiliath."

"That's comforting," grumbled James.

"Now… Gimli?"

Mundungus was silent. He simply glowered at the entire assembled company.

"Mundungus," Dumbledalf crowed. "You do not have a choice in this matter."

Sighing heavily, he raised a heavy axe and stood to join the company, his height having been reduced to that of a Dwarf. "All right. You have my axe. As long a you carry it up Mount Doom."

Apparently Mundungus knew less about Lord of the Rings than I did.

Finally, Severus stood up. I could tell he was tense about assisting James Potter, but it wasn't as if he had much of a choice. Who knew? Maybe the story would be so AU that he wouldn't die and split the Fellowship.

"If this is the will of the Council, then Gondor will see it done, no matter how irritating-" he shot a glance at James and Sirius "the company will be."

Moody nodded. "Finally a direct quote. Even though you're not from Gondor, and we sort of threw you into the Council with no past life. No time in the Shire, or Arnor, or wherever you folks are supposed to be from. Now what about our other hobbits? Technically you weren't supposed to be here, but without a history, we sort of made do with what we could."

Remus and Peter rose slowly from their seats and trudged over to the other reluctant members of the travelling party. They were a few inches shorter than normal, but otherwise seemed no different then before, except for their hobbit-like ears.

"I give you the Fellowship of the Horcrux."

There was a pause of recognition and respect. And then it dawned on me. "Whoa, whoa, whoa!" I shouted, holding my hand up. "This wouldn't be a proper 10th Walker fiction without me!" At least according to Malorie…

Moody eyes me suspiciously. "What role do you have in the swap of canons?"

"Me? None. But I know more about Lord of the Rings than you guys do." Okay, so it was a little bit of a fib. A harmless white lie. That could possibly affect all of Middle Earth. But there were things I had learned from Malorie, in my defense. Like who Treebeard was. And why Frodo was 'hot.' And that Legolas never ran out of arrows. All those little details.

Lucky for me, Dumbledalf didn't raise any objections. But of course, he was technically Dumbledore in the role of Gandalf. So perhaps a die-hard Potterhead would prove useful. Maybe.

"Right. So you are the Fellowship of the Horcrux. You shall pass through the Dead Marshes, between the Gates of Avadakedavra into Mordor, and beneath the tower of Riddles from which the Nose of Voldemort watches his lands.

"The Nose of Voldemort?"

Dumbledalf silenced me. "It was supposed to be ironic," he said with an air of annoyance. "Just deal with it."

"Great. The Nose of Voldemort. Just great. Kill me now."


End file.
